Canadian poet Karen Solie has been awarded the 2025 TS Eliot Prize for her sixth collection, Wellwater, a profound exploration of ecological destruction, per theguardian.com.
Solie was announced as the winner at a ceremony at London’s Wallace Collection on Monday evening. She receives a £25,000 jackpot from the TS Eliot Foundation. This latest accolade follows her success in October, where Wellwater co-won the Forward Prize for Best Collection.
The judging panel, comprising poets Michael Hofmann, Patience Agbabi and Niall Campbell, selected Solie from a shortlist featuring heavyweights such as Tom Paulin and Sarah Howe.
Hofmann, chair of the judges, praised the collection for its “ironic humour” and “perfect equipoise,” stating: “The poems of Wellwater come from the whole of an adventurously lived life. They offer no happy endings… and yet they are anything but grim.”
The collection is deeply rooted in Solie’s upbringing in rural Saskatchewan, a province increasingly ravaged by Canada’s wildfire seasons. The poems reckon with man-made hazards while celebrating landscapes that refuse to be tamed.
Solie, who was previously nominated for the prize in 2019 for The Caiplie Caves, currently divides her time between Canada and the University of St Andrews, where she teaches poetry. She joins an illustrious list of recent winners, including Peter Gizzi, Joelle Taylor and Jason Allen-Paisant.
•Featured image: Karen Solie/Adrian Pope
